Ambulance officers have hailed a 10-year-old Kyabram boy a hero after his actions helped to save his mother when she twice fell unconscious after being bitten on the head by a bee on the family property two weeks ago.
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Emma Whitcher went into anaphylactic shock after suffering a bee sting while walking the family dog and twice fell unconscious while on the phone to emergency services.
Her son, Knoa, was the only other person in the house at the time and was forced to follow the instructions of the operator to check his mother’s breathing and start CPR.
The January 5 early morning event started when, just like every other day, Emma Whitcher walked the perimeter of the family’s Lilford Rd property with blue heeler-cross pup, Buddy.
“It was a normal day getting ready for work,” she said.
“I do the walk every morning, but this time I thought I’d do it twice.
“We keep bees at the back of the property and one got stuck in my hair.”
Emma said she had been bitten by bees before as she and husband Evan had produced their own honey for several years.
“As I walked past the bee hives for a second time a bee got tangled in my hair. Once I heard his buzz change I knew he was upset and I was almost back to the house when he bit me,” she said.
Emma did not think too much of the incident, as a year earlier she had been bitten in the mouth and had a “fat lip’’ as a result.
“I've been bitten by bees ever since I was a kid,” she said.
“I asked Knoa tp get the stinger out, which he did and I took an antihistamine with some water.”
Emma said that is where things changed, for the worse.
“I started to feel strange, I was dizzy and sweating,” she said.
“My instinct was I need to be with people, but I knew I couldn’t drive and only Knoa and I were home.”
Emma’s father lives at the rear of the property and her daughter, who is a nurse, was still a week away from returning from the United Kingdom.
“There are usually a lot of people here,” she said.
She dialled 000 and not long after passed out.
Enter 10-year-old Knoa, who took the phone from his mother and continued to converse with the operator.
“She asked me how old I was, how many people were here and then asked me to check mum’s pulse,” he said.
Calling on skills he learned in Year 4 last year at Kyabram P-12 he took his mother’s pulse by feeling her neck.
“We practiced it in Miss Farrell's class,” Knoa said.
“It was a weak pulse and I told her that,” he said, Knoa also telling the operator that his mother was struggling to breathe.
“She asked me to shake mum,” Knoa said.
After regaining consciousness and getting back to her feet Emma only made it to the other end of the house before she passed out again.
“Knoa had kept the phone and he took over again,” Emma said.
“He told the operator I was lying down. It all happened all very fast.”
Knoa was instructed by the operator to begin compressions on his mother’s chest, to assist with her breathing.
“I scared the life out of him not long after he started doing that, because I came to again,” she said.
“He told me to lie still because he was saving me.”
Barking dogs alerted Emma and Knoa to the arrival of ambulance officers, who were on the scene quickly because they were “having a coffee’’ in Kyabram.
Not long after Emma had been stabilised by the officers, who used Epi-Pens to administer two doses of epinephrine to counteract the allergic reaction, Knoa was back into “kid mode’’.
Once things had settled down Knoa was on the phone to his mate to confirm the play date was still on.
Meanwhile, his mother was transferred by ambulance to hospital, where she spent six hours under observation.
“They told me it was a very severe reaction and I probably only had a 10- to 15 minute time frame before things got serious,” she said.
As a result of the incident Emma has been issued with a prescription for the Epi-pens.
Emma’s work colleagues at Wellways in Shepparton have also made a commitment to learn how to use the Epi-pen, in case of a workplace emergency.
“We have two first aiders at work who have learned how to use them,” she said.
“If I get bitten again they will slow the whole process down.”
As for the bees. They have been removed, husband Evan suggesting (with tongue firmly in cheek) that it was just as he was about to harvest 11 litres of honey.
“They have been shipped off to a friend’s place. I expect he will be sending back a couple of jars,” Evan said.
Emma said she found it astonishing just how quickly the situation became critical and how quickly she recovered.
She said considering the time she spent outside a little bee causing all this trouble was quite confusing.
But there was a warning attached to her message for other “women of a certain age’’.
“Women can be affected more seriously as they grow older and natural changes affect their immune system,” she said
She has since been diagnosed, through a blood test, as being highly allergic to bees.
As for her son, she was super impressed, and appreciative, that he kept such a cool head.
“He gave all the information they needed and stayed near me. It took something special,” she said.
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